Travel South Dakota and See the Universe

By Paulette Tobin

11/13/00

All of us have places in our lives, whether it's the family homestead, or our hometown or some exotic vacation spot, that we keep special in our hearts and memories. Many of my favorite spots are not far from home. I know I haven't seen much of the world, but it's hard for me to think I could love anywhere more than the upper Midwest, and especially South Dakota.

The snow has begun to fly here in Grand Forks, but just a few weeks ago fall was at its peak, and my Mom, my brother, Gerry, and I spent a weekend in early October driving down to Kearney, Neb., to visit our other brother, David, and his family. Coincidentally, our sister, June, and her husband, Chuck, happened to be there, too, on their way driving from Wisconsin to their new home in southern California.

The drive from Eureka to Kearney takes seven or eight hours, and passes through what I suppose some people would call miles and miles of nothing. Some people look at the prairies and don't see that the grass and the sky have a thousand colors and textures. They don't notice the gold of the goldenrod, or the greens of the sage and the wormwood and the cottonwoods, or the orange, the purple and the blazing red of the turning leaves and sumac. Nor do they hear the meadowlark's song or the rustle of the unseen things in the grass. They never know to look for the prairie cactus or the gumbo lily, much less detect the bobbing tail of the whitetail deer in the distance. I feel sorry for these people.

My brother farms and ranches and Mom is a retired farmer, and they notice things, even little things, like how much it's rained, or where pastures are overgrazed and how much harvest there's left to be done. They also commented on the towns we passed and which cafes they'd eaten at before, which town used to have a championship football team and which places seemed even smaller than the last time we'd seen them. Mom has made the trip to Nebraska a time or two in the 16 years Dave has lived there, and she likes to entertain us with stories of past trips. One of her favorites is the one about the time a waitress in Reliance, S.D., remembered her because Mom was wearing the same shirt she'd had on when she and Dad had stopped there to eat a year earlier! Only in South Dakota, right?

Our trip took us south through Highmore and Fort Thompson and across the Missouri River at the Big Bend Dam, then down across Interstate 90 through Hamill and Colome. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip, especially the valley where you cross the White River. We entered Nebraska at Wewela, S.D., not much more than a bend in the road with a few ramshackle buildings. Then, not far into Nebraska, there's the Niobrara River, another beautiful valley, thick with trees and brush, and the river itself, wide and lazy looking, and full of sand bars and other places to hang up a canoe.

Further south still, past Springview and Bassett, you get into the Sandhills, which are literally rolling sand hills, except that a very high water table feeds the sandy soil and keeps the hills growing with grass. Here, cattle must outnumber humans about 1,000 to one. Look at a map, and you'll see there are only about seven towns between the Nebraska border and Kearney, and none of them with more than a couple hundred people.

As we got closer to Kearney, the landscape changed again, and we could see the soil was heavier, nearly white in places. David, an ag lender at a Kearney bank, said it's the clay that makes it so. During our time in Kearney, we drove a few miles south to see the Platte River, often described as a mile wide and an inch deep. Even so, the Platte River has been a major thoroughfare through the heart of the country since before the arrival of the European settlers, and today parallels Interstate 80.

In South Dakota, one of my favorite drives is the one east from Rapid City on Highway 44. After rolling through Rapid Valley, Caputa and Farmingdale, you pass within a stone's throw of Scenic before heading into the Badlands. At Interior, the 44 swings south to Wanblee, and then east again to Cedar Butte, White, Wood and Winner. To me, this is the true West, in all its lovely, lonely beauty, from the eerie Badlands to the more familiar prairies, pastures, ranches and farms.

Before moving to Grand Forks in 1993, we lived in Rapid City for six years, and another trip I've enjoyed is the road south of Scenic, down past the Badlands Visitors Center and Sharp's Corner and then to Wounded Knee. The Knee was the site of one of history's most shameful massacres, and the cemetery there is a solemn and awesome place. All the country around Pine Ridge is beautiful. We visited the reservation a couple of times on day trips, once to attend a powwow, and enjoyed it.

I think all of us who have lived (or still live) in South Dakota consider the Black Hills part of our home in some way, and many of us have our favorite places there. From Spearfish Canyon to Hill City (ever eaten at the Alpine Inn?) to Sylvan Lake, I love it all, even the tacky tourist traps and the gambling dens. Some people tend of think of the Black Hills as all the same, but it's not. The Southern Hills of Hot Springs are very different from Custer State Park and the Needles area, and that is different still from Deadwood and Spearfish, and it's another story again when you cross into Wyoming and Montana.

Another absolutely stunning drive is Highway 79 north of Sturgis past Bear Butte and into what I think of as the butte country. At Newell you can either head north to Reva and on to Lemmon or Hettinger, N.D., or head east through Mud Butte, Faith and Dupree, all landscapes I can't get enough of.

Not that eastern South Dakota isn't beautiful as well! A few years ago we were driving south from Mitchell near Tyndall and Tabor on our way to the Gavins Point Dam, when we found a creek with my father's name, Emanuel Creek, and had to stop and take a picture of the sign. I looked it up in my "South Dakota Place Names" book and found it was named for an early French trapper.

My husband's family is from Mitchell, and often when we visit we drive through the Brookings area. That's another place I love, and I sometimes fantasize about living on one of the many lakes - probably because of fun memories of cutting classes at SDSU to go sunbathing at Oakwood State Park with Nancy Heupel, Della Opp, Sandy Johnson and others!

My first boyfriend was from Lake City, S.D., and graduated from Britton High School, and it was with him that I discovered Roy Lake and the other beautiful lakes of northeastern South Dakota. Historic Fort Sisseton is another place not to be missed (there's a festival there every year the first weekend in June), as is Sica Hollow.

I'm not a winter traveler, but in the summer I enjoy nothing more than a drive across South Dakota. My mother taught me to pack a picnic lunch, and we've enjoyed lunch in city parks from Wood to Faith to Pierre and many points in between. It's the one time that I can truly say, getting there is half the fun.

(Paulette Haupt Tobin graduated from Eureka High School in 1973 and today lives in Grand Forks, N.D.)